On the Indian Hills

SUNDAY morning, the 30th, found me with kit packed and ready for a forward movement upon the jungle; so, after a comfortable breakfast I made my adieu to F--- and his pleasant family, tipped the butler and a great number of his satellites, who seemed fully accustomed to this habit of civilized countries, and eventually found myself en route for Beypore in a bullock-bandy with a considerable quantity of small packages, and the inevitable Indian tiffin basket, which is an absolute necessity when one travels.

I have mentioned before what a bullock-cart is like, so I will not repeat the description. It is, however, doubly trying to ride in one when bent on catching a train, and mine kept me in a fever of worry. It was ten miles from the house to the terminus of the railway, and as only one train went every day, and my luggage was going by that one, while bearers and all sorts of well-made arrangements awaited its arrival at my destination at Palghaut, the thought of missing it was distracting. And yet the placid white oxen in the shafts would not move faster than a walk. In vain I got out and thumped them with my heavy umbrella, and equally in vain their driver twisted their long tails into knots (until one could almost hear the bones cracking) and heaped unmitigated abuse upon their female ancestors. Their tails proved as hard and senseless as their hides, and they seemed to consider that, their ancestors being long since departed to celestial pastures, it mattered little what calumny was heaped upon those unconscious heads. In brief, they won the fight and set their own pace, as doubtless they had done many times before, and I had to give in with the best grace possible, devoutly hoping something would happen to delay the departure of the train.

At Beypore there was a ferry-boat waiting apparently for me -- for though the bows were laden with a miscellaneous collection of native passengers, a seat with a crimson cushion on it was reserved in the stern -- so, stepping in, we put off at once, and, rowed by the sinewy arms of half a dozen bronze-skinned boatmen in the usual cool costume of broad hat and small handkerchief, we got to the other side in about twenty minutes. Here the boatmen first pushed the second-class passengers over into about two feet of water and let them get ashore how they could, and then turned the boat round and put a plank from the thwarts to the beach for myself. For this, however, I had to pay -- my passage across, with its attendant luxuries, costing eight annas, while the coolies only paid two.

I was much surprised to find that the porter nuisance is as bad here as anywhere on the European continent. No sooner had I finished breakfast than my luggage was seized upon by a whole host of individuals, who had been squatting in the verandah for the special purpose ever since my arrival. It would not have seemed so bad if they had taken fair loads, but they took just as little as possible -- one fellow pounced upon two bottles of lemonade and persisted in carrying them down to the train, which stood at the bottom of the single flight of stairs. I rewarded most of the others, but the lemonade gentleman was the last straw which overcame my generosity, and I told him to go; but he seemed to think he had earned a reward, and stood chattering and grinning at the window to the amusement of the other luggage-wallahs, so, after standing it for some time, I rolled up a newspaper and suddenly sprang out of the carriage. The fellow seemed to think his last hour had come, for he "scooted," as they say in America -- fled down the platform, crossed the sandy beach and sprang into the nearest boat, and, I believe, would have cut the rope and put out to sea, only that, looking back, he saw that, contented with my bloodless victory, I had retired to the carriage again.

There was nothing of much interest or very new to be seen along the line. For some time we ran through the palm groves that fringe the seashore, with the huts of the fishermen scattered here and there among them. Once or twice we came to